"Let no freedom be allowed to novelty, because it is not fitting that any addition should be made to antiquity. Let not the clear faith and belief of our forefathers be fouled by any muddy admixture."
-- Pope Sixtus III

Democrats complain that Republicans want to let states redirect federal money away from abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood and eliminate $317 million from the funding program. Republicans insist spending levels, not policy issues, are the sticking point. As the countdown clock toward a deal to avert a federal shutdown neared zero, and for all the talk of reducing the size of ...

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

As Congress continues to battle over this year's budget, House Budget chairman Paul Ryan released a blueprint today to guide Republican fiscal policies for years to come. Ryan's budget proposes spending cuts, tax reforms, and the restructuring of entitlement programs.

Unlike the status quo horror show from the jug-eared pansy in the White House.

His plan will dominate budget discussions for the rest of the year, and it will help frame the fiscal debate for the 2012 presidential campaign. That's why liberal pundits are already attacking it with gusto. In the Washington Post, E. J. Dionne called Ryan's plan "radical," "irresponsible," and "extreme." But serious fiscal experts know that the real extreme plan is President Obama's "do nothing" budget, which would result in disastrous levels of debt and crushing tax burdens on families in coming years.

As a first step toward budget sanity, Ryan proposes further cuts to discretionary spending beyond those currently being debated. However, his main focus is on transforming the so-called entitlements. He would transition Medicare from the current Soviet-style system to one based on consumer choice. Instead of a system based on payments to health-care providers, new retirees would receive a "premium support" payment to buy a private insurance plan of their own choosing.

That reform would allow Congress to directly limit taxpayer costs, while encouraging providers and patients to reduce inefficiencies in the system. It would also improve the quality of care through more competition. Without such reforms, rising costs will likely compel Congress to start rationing care to seniors and making other cuts that would seriously distort the health-care system.

For Medicaid, food stamps, and other federal-state aid programs, the Ryan plan embraces block grants. The states would receive a fixed pot of money, but be given more flexibility on program design. That would end incentives for states to over-expand their programs with "free" federal dollars. Block granting was the successful approach of welfare reform in 1996, and it should be warmly received by today's large group of conservative governors.

Over the first decade, Ryan's reforms would reduce federal spending from 25 percent of gross domestic product to about 20 percent, although that level would still be higher than it was as recently as 2007. The big savings would come over the longer term. By 2040, the size of the federal government under Ryan's plan would be half the size under a "do nothing" plan — roughly 20 percent of GDP vs. 40 percent. For young Americans, the resulting differences in tax burdens and prosperity between those alternative fiscal futures would be massive.

On taxes, Ryan would reduce rates and simplify the system. His previous plan collapsed individual income taxes to a simple structure of 10 and 25 percent, while ending most deductions and other special breaks. His new plan drops the top rate to 25 percent, but leaves most of the simplification details to the House tax-writing committee.

E. J. Dionne also attacked Ryan's plan as "tax cuts for the rich," but that's nonsense. It's easy to design a two-rate tax system that doesn't change the current distribution of tax payments at all. I favor a system with a single flat rate, so Ryan's plan is too "progressive" for me, but it would certainly simplify the tax code and help spur economic growth.

Ryan would cut the federal corporate-tax rate from 35 to 25 percent. That would still leave us with a higher rate than the average in Europe, but it would be a major spur to investment and job creation. To his credit, Ryan scrapped the idea from his prior plan of converting the corporate tax to a value-added tax, which would have been a money machine for the government.

In sum, Paul Ryan has proposed a fiscal reform structure that should win broad political support. Moderates can take comfort that the premium support idea for Medicare reform is endorsed by prominent Democratic economist, Alice Rivlin. Fiscal conservatives can take comfort that the Ryan plan is a step toward even larger spending and tax reforms. Block granting, for example, can be a step toward fully devolving programs such as food stamps to the states, and the Ryan tax plan can be a first step toward a flat tax.

Political leaders keep saying that we need an "adult conversation" on federal budget reforms. Republican Ryan has started that conversation, and now it is up to Democrats to put aside their childish rants about "extremism" and offer up their own plan to avert the coming fiscal disaster.

Conservative historian Andrew Roberts says that a new biography of Mohandas Gandhi provides ample evidence to conclude that the revered leader of the Indian independence movement was gay.

What exactly is a "conservative historian"? Is it one who does careful research and does not make claims without evidence?

Roberts reviewed the new biography Great Soul by Joseph Lelyveld for The Wall Street Journal. He said the “generally admiring book” would nonetheless support a highly critical opinion of Gandhi, whom Roberts called “a sexual weirdo, a political incompetent and a fanatical faddist.”

Hee-hee.

Among the charges leveled by Roberts is that the icon of nonviolence slept with young women under age 18, which leads him to the discussion of Gandhi’s homosexuality.

Think about that one for a moment, kiddies. That would explain quite a bit about our depraved culture as well.

“Yet as Mr. Lelyveld makes abundantly clear, Gandhi's organ probably only rarely became aroused with his naked young ladies, because the love of his life was a German-Jewish architect and bodybuilder, Hermann Kallenbach, for whom Gandhi left his wife in 1908. ‘Your portrait (the only one) stands on my mantelpiece in my bedroom,’ he wrote to Kallenbach. ‘The mantelpiece is opposite to the bed.’ For some ­reason, cotton wool and Vaseline were "a constant reminder" of Kallenbach, which Mr. Lelyveld believes might ­relate to the enemas Gandhi gave ­himself, although there could be other, less generous, explanations.”

Icky.

Roberts continues, “Gandhi wrote to Kallenbach about ‘how completely you have taken ­possession of my body. This is slavery with a vengeance.’ Gandhi nicknamed himself ‘Upper House’ and Kallenbach ‘Lower House,’ and he made Lower House promise not to ‘look lustfully upon any woman.’ The two then pledged ‘more love, and yet more love ... such love as they hope the world has not yet seen.’”

That seems conclusive.

The men were parted in 1914, but Roberts concludes based on the biography by Lelyveld that Gandhi dreamed of being reunited with Kallenbach.

HYDERABAD, India (AFP via Yahoo! News) – One of India's best-known spiritual leaders, famous for his apparent miracles and long list of influential followers, is on life support in a southern hospital, officials said on Tuesday.

Satya Sai Baba, 85, who has devotees in more than 100 countries, was admitted to a hospital funded by his organisation in the town of Puttaparthi with lung and chest congestion on March 28.

His condition has since deteriorated and he is now on a ventilator and is receiving kidney dialysis, the most recent health bulletin from the hospital said on Tuesday.

He remains "critical," although his "level of consciousness has considerably improved" and his vital systems are "stable", said the update from the Sri Satya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences.

Thousands of followers have begun arriving in Puttaparthi, home to Sai Baba's ashram in the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh, with many agitated by conflicting information given out by local authorities.

Government officials have sought to play down the seriousness of his condition, while police are preventing groups from gathering in the town, according to local reports.

The wild-haired leader has a following of millions in India and abroad, many of whom believe him to be a living god, and the reincarnation of the great spiritual guru, Sai Baba of Shirdi, who died in 1918.

The guru, who claims to have performed several miracles including bringing men back to life, counts former Indian prime ministers, top businessmen and even the country's cricketers among his devotees.

Oh, cricketers believe in him. That makes all the difference.

His organisation funds health and education projects in India, including a string of hospitals that claim to be able to cure ailments beyond the capabilities of mainstream medicine.

Like left-fascism? Now that would be miraculous.

He and Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, the so-called "hugging saint" of Kerala, are the best known of thousands of Hindu ascetics.

The swami's birth in Andhra Pradesh is shrouded in mystery.

One hagiographical account by a biographer claimed the mysterious sounding of drums signalled his impending birth.

In his teens he is said to have begun singing verses in Sanskrit, a language of which he had no prior knowledge, and then became able to materialise flowers and sweets to the astonishment of observers.

I'll bet that's why he does so well with the ladies.

His devotees also credit him with an ability to remember his past lives, a frequent claim of Indian holy men, and he is believed to produce sacred ash every day.

Huh? He does what now?

His work in education and health have won him widespread acclaim and respectability, but his reputation has also been damaged by allegations of sexual abuse and paedophilia.

Yep. Why doesn't that surprise me?

There was something last week about Gandhi liking little boys...

A BBC programme in 2004 called "The Secret Swami" featured interviews with former followers who claimed Sai Baba took advantage of them. The allegations were denied by the spiritual leader's organisation.

A man convicted of murdering a debt-ridden motivational speaker was sentenced Monday to at least two decades in prison in a case that tested the bounds of assisted suicide.

Speaking publicly for the first time about Jeffrey Locker's July 2009 death, Kenneth Minor said his own life had "ended that day" that he accepted Locker's offer to pay to be killed in a seeming robbery so his family could collect millions of dollars in insurance money.

"In the end, Mr. Locker is where he wanted to be," said Minor, 38, his voice sometimes breaking as he spoke. "I'm no animal, and I ain't got no malice in my heart."

"In the end, a life is a life. And I ask your forgiveness," he concluded — before yelling an expletive on hearing his 20-years-to-life sentence. He plans an appeal that will likely note a juror's statement that she felt compelled to convict him because of the judge's legal instructions.

The case was unusual for broaching the concept of assisted suicide in the context of strangers staging a seeming street crime.

Locker approached Minor on an East Harlem street to ask for help staging his death, both prosecutors and Minor had said. Minor didn't testify at his trial but told his account to police when he was arrested.

Locker, 52, co-authored a 1998 self-help book and gave presentations on handling workplace stress. But he was deep in financial trouble himself, partly because of his investment in a $300 million Ponzi scheme run by Backstreet Boys and `N Sync mastermind Lou Pearlman.

Locker had laid plans for his demise, including researching funeral arrangements online, sending his wife an email explaining how to shield and distribute their assets "when I am gone" and buying about $14 million in life insurance in his final months to add to $4 million he already had, investigators found.

Minor was a down-and-out stranger, a former computer technician with a record of drug arrests. He said he initially balked at Locker's request but started to feel sorry for him after hearing about his money troubles.

Prosecutors said Minor went beyond aiding suicide by stabbing the 52-year-old Locker seven times in the self-help expert's car in East Harlem, miles from his home on suburban Long Island. Minor was arrested a few days later after using Locker's ATM card — his compensation from Locker, he said.

"This was murder for money, not a mercy killing," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said after Minor's conviction last month.

Minor said he only held a knife while Locker repeatedly lunged into it.

"I'm not suggesting that what Mr. Minor did is correct or right," his lawyer, Daniel J. Gotlin, told the court Monday," but "had Mr. Locker not decided to come to Manhattan and find an underprivileged individual, a minority individual, to do his dirty work, we would not be here today."

Minor, who noted that he had offered to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter, also said Monday he believed race played a role in the case.

But state Supreme Court Justice Carol Berkman said race "has nothing to do with what's going on here."

"(Minor) was willing to participate in inflicting great pain on another human being for cash," she said before sentencing him to a prison term midway between the minimum and maximum for his conviction.

Berkman's instructions to the jury about New York's law surrounding assisted suicide are likely to be a centerpiece of Minor's appeal. The state allows "causing or aiding" a suicide as a defense to certain murder charges; over Gotlin's objections, Berkman told jurors that provision couldn't apply if Minor "actively" caused Locker's death.

That left jurors confused about the defense, juror Olympia Moy said in a sworn March 11 statement Gotlin filed in court.

"If the judge had not instructed us to consider whether Mr. Minor's killing was 'active' or not, I would have voted not guilty to murder," Moy's statement said, adding that she contacted Gotlin unbidden to express her concerns after the verdict.

A person who answered a phone number for Moy hung up on a reporter Monday evening.

Berkman said Monday she believes the instructions were appropriate, and she turned down a bid from Gotlin to overturn jurors' March 3 verdict.

"I'm sorry that a juror was shaken," she said, but "day-after remorse by a juror is never a basis to question a verdict."

Locker's family has been unable to collect most of the insurance money. His widow and family declined to comment Monday through her father's law office.

Criminal cases surrounding assisted suicide have often concerned terminally ill people and the medical providers or relatives who help them end their lives. But a few other cases besides Minor's have involved looser relationships and people who weren't sick.

About Me

First of all, the word is SEX, not GENDER. If you are ever tempted to use the word GENDER, don't. The word is SEX! SEX! SEX! SEX! For example: "My sex is male." is correct.
"My gender is male." means nothing. Look it up.
What kind of sick neo-Puritan nonsense is this? Idiot left-fascists, get your blood-soaked paws off the English language. Hence I am choosing "male" under protest.